


Kamikaze

by valammar



Series: After the End [6]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect - Various Authors, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Control Ending, Dreams and Nightmares, Exposition, F/M, Grief/Mourning, How Kaidan Met Unity, Post Control Ending Twists, Post-Canon, Post-Ending, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-22 05:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11960277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valammar/pseuds/valammar
Summary: Blasting, blazingStars explodingA cosmic war raging in the skyBut all I could hear was your last goodbye-Memorial, Susanne Sundfør





	1. Chapter 1

Kaidan loved the gorgeous harmony of the ranch. Teetering on the ladder in the apple orchard, he plucked the first of the harvest. He’d never forget the fresh smell of hay wafting around him to the bright blue sky, wide like open palms. In the barn, newborn black-eyed lambs bleated their first cries to the world as their parents’ hooves pounded the earth in revelry. Summers were always simple as a steward to the land. Once his basket was full, he’d carry it to the pleasant coolness of the cellar where he’d emerge again to the breeze lifting the branches and carrying the fresh tartness of ripe fruit across his face. He remembered harvest seasons rife with crisp summer wines and al fresco luncheons, best shared.

Nora had never known a peace like this. In a past life, Kaidan hoped to bring her to the ranch during the summer months so they could commingle the city-dwelling, rural-dwelling and space-craving parts of themselves, watching the sunset over a bottle of Lambrusco. The humid air would smell sticky-sweet from blossoming trees, like syrup. Her illegal, gasoline powered motorbike canted on the hillside behind them. She’d chastise him for his taste in wines, and then make a jab about how it was just like him to pick something humble and dry. In a past life, before everything.

Placing the plaque on her memorial had been the proverbial final nail in the coffin. He hadn’t been able to tear his eyes off the shape of her name; fourteen letters that, in any other combination, would have meant little to him. Instead, he stood before them until his back stiffened and the other grieving had left him to stare down that strip of metal alone as if he might bring her back through sheer willpower.

She told him she loved him and left a hand lingering on the side of his face as he bled from his chest in Lieutenant Vega’s grip for what felt like an eternal moment. He recalled every crystallized detail: the rumble of the shuttle, the discordant thrum of Reaper beams, and Leonora Shepard’s lithe frame charging headfirst into the blinding beacon during the Battle of London, never to be seen again.

He was a soldier. Kaidan steeled himself for the misfortune of watching his comrades die. He was not prepared for Shepard, though. 

Not the first time, where she succumbed to the unforgiving vacuum of space.

Not the second time, where she met a fate as enigmatic as it was undoubtedly heroic. 

Not Nora, he thought. To say she was different would have been an egregious understatement.

“ _Kaidan_.” The whisper brushed over him like delicate fingertips, sending a cold shiver down his neck. He spun to see the trees dancing in the gale accompanied by silence. When he turned back he no longer gazed at the barn’s red roof atop a lush green hill, but rubble.

Curious, he climbed down the ladder and ventured forth. Kaidan shuddered in the quiet dark, the gravel crunching under his shoes in a hissing echo. The ruin felt familiar, though it had been far too degraded to identify any mnemonic markers apart from the crumbled pillars framing a round chasm ahead. He could  _swear_  he’d seen them before.

A broken bridge cut through the darkness as if the other half had been snapped in ire like a wooden pencil. He peered into its mouth and saw nothing—a black hole, beckoning light into its inky center. 

“ _Kaidan_ ,” the voice washed over him again when he stood at the pit’s edge. He raised his head only to be faced with a bright glow.

Then, he awoke.

Dreams could be taunting sometimes, but dreams in grief were the most visceral. Last night’s felt especially so; a cloying combination of hopes and fears. 

It had been almost a year to the day since the final goodbye. 

Sleep was rare and fitful, so he wasn’t surprised when he woke sharply. It took a moment for him to place his surroundings, sprawled out on the bed he had once shared with Shepard. Now it was his, left to him in her will. For lack of a better place he used it—or maybe some part of his primitive senses convinced himself that it still smelled like her.

“Lieutenant Colonel Alenko, Dr. T’Soni wishes to see you.” An illuminated orb peered at him as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the bedroom. “She has been calling you for, as she says, a hundred years.”

“Liara always had a flair for the dramatic.” Kaidan groaned, giving a yawn as he peeled himself out from under the duvet, shooing the drone away. Nora had wrapped herself up in the soft white fabric once after a night of drunken debauchery. He remembered entering the bedroom to see only tendrils of black hair emerging from the blanket like a hanar’s legs.

Over time, Shepard's allies were pulled this way and that, their guidance needed in place of her own. Kaidan requested permission to assist on the Citadel where the Shadow Broker also stationed herself. He jogged down the stairs, still yawning and surprised Liara had even bothered to knock this time. 

“What have you been doing?" she demanded. "If you’ll recall, you were supposed to meet me half an hour ago.” Behind her, he could see the spherical drone that woke him bobbing and whirling through what little light the tinted windows provided.

She'd grown impatient with him in recent months. Perhaps it derived from her innate instinct to ensure he wasn’t moping around the apartment. Her violet eyes flicked over the bare expanse of his chest, rife with keloids from battle, and down the length of his exposed legs before she gave an understanding sigh.

“Admit it, Liara: this is  _not_ the worst thing you’ve ever seen," he said in his defense, standing aside to let her in. Kaidan avoided giving a glance at the clock knowing he wouldn’t be pleased with how long he’d laid in bed. There was a time when punctuality and predictability motivated him. There was a time when  _time_  mattered. 

Time was funny that way.

“No, the worst thing I’ve ever seen was Vega’s maniacal face while he sprayed us down in the Kodiak bay, all because Shepard didn’t want corrupted rachni parts tracked all over the Normandy.” She walked past him, running her fingers over the untouched piano and leaving serpentine lines in the dust. “That, or my very first husk.”

“So, you’re comparing me to husks now? I’m not sure I like where this conversation is going.” He scratched the rough stubble at his throat, watching her sink onto the plush couch. He remembered shopping for the leather sofa with Nora and how she had flopped down onto the cushions and sighed happily, kicking off her grime-slicked boots over its arm.

“Yet you continue to participate.”

“Hey, it’s not every day the Shadow Broker barges into your apartment with barely a greeting. I figured insulting you would be detrimental to my health.”

"Since we  _are_ on the subject," she eyed him again, "you're looking pale."

He smoothed a hand over his jaw. "I just woke up."

"My sources tell me you're not eating properly. A human biotic should know better."

He gave a blithe shrug. "We're still in reparations.  _Nobody_ can eat properly until production's been stabilized."

She frowned at him and he turned, climbing back up the stairs to make himself presentable. He heard the clang of dishes as Liara helped herself to something from the cupboard. After splashing his face with cool water, he made quick work of getting dressed. 

"You still haven't asked me why I came to visit," she called to him from the lower level.

Asari had a reputation for being cryptic, and she could be no different. Kaidan bundled up the fabric of his shirt between his hands. "You're right. What could Dr. Liara T'Soni need from the second human Spectre?" 

“I’ve found your parents.” The words stopped him in his tracks.

“Where are they?” He almost couldn’t bring himself to ask. Liara would have told him outright, he reasoned, if they were dead.

“I've arranged for your father to be transported here for treatment at Huerta. Your mother is with him.” He tugged his shirt on and unhooked his armor from its mannequin. When he descended he found her watching him closely from the mouth of the stairs. “Communication channels have been bogged down for months. They only recently made contact, but they will be here within the day.”

“Within the day,” he repeated. “Is he…?”

“My contact says he’s stable, though he suffered several broken bones while scouring a toppled building for survivors.” Her words stoked a fond flame in his chest. Damn, he respected the man.

“Well. That’s the first good news I’ve heard in a while.” He fastened the final armor clasp over his forearm. “I guess I should go make sure their arrival is smooth.”

Liara nodded. That was their way now: comfortable silences and unspoken understanding. Her slender fingers hugged a dainty pink cup of tea brewed from Shepard’s private stock. Fine porcelain china, almost too delicate for Nora to have owned, though she was always one for irony. 

He wondered when her inability to hold her tongue would rear its ugly head and flay him wide, sensing the meteor hovering in the atmosphere above him. Liara fiddled with her teacup and absently licked a fingertip to collect sugar granules off the saucer. 

“Kaidan."

 _Here it comes, plummeting from the heavens._  

"Yeah?"

"Do you think we go somewhere when we die?” 

 _Ah_. The meteor obliterated his equilibrium. No survivors. 

It was a question he’d asked himself too many times, sitting in his quarters with Commander Vyrnnus’ blood on his hands; laying in his cot on the Normandy wedged next to what had been Jenkins' – and later, Ashley's. He noticed with dagger-sharp clarity that joy drained from those moments. He’d struggled with the concept of mortality in his youth, long before he’d encountered a ferocious space-farer with a passion for the symphony, brown liquor, and twentieth-century motorcycle repair. 

The apartment's walls had been restored with what little resources were available. In the past, the incongruences would have irritated him, and the lack of balance would have inflamed his senses. But now, looking at the mosaic of mismatched materials coating the floors and ceilings, he realized that Leonora would have preferred it this way. A little imperfect. A little rugged. Made more unique for being broken. 

Her cello’s remains were recovered in the aftermath. Kaidan laid them in plain view on a makeshift altar in the sunken living room as a memorial. He studied it then and found its decrepit state fitting. Almost like she took it with her and serenaded the lost into their next life.

“You are...smiling,” Liara said, her voice soft. 

“I was just thinking. If we do go somewhere, then Shepard has already made her mark on it.” He was surprised at how much relief he felt at the thought; at how peaceful the tumultuous waters of mourning could be.

She nodded, turning her gaze to the instrument as well. “Of that, I am certain.” 

Liara’s brand of mischief was something he was glad to have around, even if her questions so often left him wistful or lamenting. He supposed that it was better to have a friend that asked him the hard questions than to have a friend that didn’t care enough to ask  _any_.

“There  _is_ something else.”

His stomach lurched like he'd been launched from zero gravity. “Fire away.”

“The casino is hosting a charity gala tomorrow. All proceeds support the Citadel’s rebuild effort. Would you care to accompany me?” 

Kaidan bristled and that fleeting sense of serenity dissolved. “I can only handle one life-changing question per hour. What about Javik?" She had spent more time with the abrasive Prothean than anyone would consider reasonable.

Liara balked at the suggestion. " _Javik_  at a charity gala?"

 _Fair enough_. "…I see your point, but why me? Miranda would be a better choice, besides."

"Why are you trying to think of a reason not to go?”

That tingling pulse in his gut persisted. "Look, Liara. I'm not ready to be out in that sort of situation." The last time he set foot in the casino had been with  _her_. Nora, in a dress that showed the cutting angles of her hip bones. Nora, with her hair curled and piled on top of her head. Nora, with her wicked smile and none-too-subtle flirtations.

"Fine, I’m not going to twist your arm.” The metaphor was too vulgar for her; almost Shepard-like. She gave a disappointed sigh. "You know, the asari practice taking refuge in community during times of sorrow.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked, feigning ignorance. Grieving the same woman twice made him grow obstinate.

“It means I’ll ask Miranda, but Nora wouldn’t have wanted you to isolate yourself."

"Who knows what she would have wanted? She's dead. For real this time." The words burned on his tongue like bitter medicine. He wished he hadn’t said them.

* * *

On the way to the hospital, his thoughts should have been occupied with visions of a warm family reunion. Instead, they once again spiraled into memories of  _her_.

 _She's dead. For real this time._  His own words haunted him like a second phantom.

There had been romance between them. Chaste and deep at times, sultry at others, and always shackled by the demands of a war that would eventually steal her away from him. Grieving questions plagued his thoughts about alternate possibilities if they’d been unbound by duty. Would he have done something different now? Would he have bundled her up into his arms on Earth on the day of the invasion? Would he have taken his one last chance to kiss her in the moments before she vanished forever into the Crucible? Would he have pulled her away as the shuttle departed? Would he have flung himself, bloodied and bruised, into the fray in pursuit of her?

Back then, he felt that if he reached out his fingers towards that spark of life in the empty void of space, he could give his life a deeper meaning. When he did, she reciprocated. Their reunion had been even more powerful. She fell back into step with him without resistance - they both needed something to hold onto. She needed a steadying force, he needed a safe harbor. 

He shook his head before he succumbed to another painful memory. The drell called their recollections solipsism. Kaidan just called it hell.

Still, the future plagued him. What should he do now, having loved and lost two times over? How could he move on when her greatest achievement literally manufactured the galaxy's future? 

Across the Milky Way gargantuan, docile Reapers delicately sewed the seams they'd shredded and worked in tandem to fix relays and homeworlds alike. The initial sight had been immensely unsettling. Nobody on the Normandy could have predicted the Crucible's outcome. He'd rather they'd all combusted, but their assistance quadrupled relief efforts.

Navigating the ghostly ruins of the once-indomitable Citadel, an ethereal calm enveloped him like a silken shroud. His biotics flourished from familiarity; a faint buzzing he'd felt before. 

“I’m sorry," her words whispered in the soft light of her fish tanks after her tour of Thessia. The defeated sound had nearly broken him, the way she fractured before him and fell apart. Her hands landed gingerly in his, warm and fragile like baby birds. It was the first time he saw Commander Shepard falter.

He wasn’t sure why  _that_  of all things returned to him. Simulated winds rustled in the last of the plant life on the Citadel, a sweet sound that had him drawing breath.

" _Kaidan_."

His comm buzzed with static and he turned to look over his shoulder. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought he’d seen light vanishing around a corner, pale like moonlight reflected in the ripples of a lake. Liara's drone?  _No_ , Glyph bobbed to and fro in midair. This apparition seemed to extend from the floor.

“Who’s there?” He called out anyway, dropping his hand to his pistol.

No answer came to him.

She thrived in darkness; in the tiniest crawlspace. Shepard took pride and a sadistic pleasure in her accuracy. She and Garrus bonded immediately over their shared skill. For how different human and turian societies were, they both shared the same tactic when it came to assassination: quick, clean and quiet. 

The way her lips curled when her bullet struck her target from yards away, their blood spraying into the air in a macabre mist, profoundly disturbed him. No one ever met the end of her scope and lived to tell. That knowledge made him feel strangely vulnerable.  _Watched_. 

“Nora?” Stupid, stupid man. He wasn’t sure why a bitter hope had risen; as if the last few months were nothing but a posturing display of her cloaking skills, honed by rigorous stealth training.

As if, by some miracle, she wasn't gone.

Out of curiosity, he turned the corner to find no lamp nor body that could have made such a glow. The Presidium, as mutilated as it was, stood silent and dim.

“Lieutenant Colonel, sir?” He nearly fell over himself turning to face a turian soldier, stiff and saluting. She'd likely been on a security patrol. “Is everything all right?” 

“Yeah. Sorry about that…” Kaidan scraped his fingernails over the implant in his neck. He recognized her insignias: Argos Rho, the same as Vyrnnus. The creamy white stood starkly against the dark brown of her plates. She looked young and carried herself with the conscientiousness of a new officer. “What’s your name, soldier?” 

“Second Lieutenant Selia Cathrian, sir.” She saluted again. 

“Selia, did you see any action?” Her grip tightened on her rigidly held weapon.

“No, sir. I’m a part of a relief crew from Palaven. I worked mostly behind the lines.” She said with a downward tilt of her head. “Kept supply routes open. Saw a lot of dead, though.” Her amber eyes dimmed. “If I may ask…what brought you here tonight?”

The buzzing in his head faded. Whatever faint desire lured him here, it was gone now.

"Chasing ghosts, apparently."

“Commander Shepard?” She jumped when he lifted his head sharply. “Apologies, sir! I shouldn't have assumed.” She stilled under his gaze, and in her curiosity, she distinctly reminded him of Liara. 

“No," he sighed. "It’s fine, Lieutenant. Am I that easy to read?” 

“Turians...we communicate with subvocals. I don't mean to pry, sir, but if you had any they'd be screaming right now.” 

He winced. "That obvious, huh?"

She gave a reluctant nod. "So...is everything all right?"

Kaidan studied the rubble for a beat. "How much do you know about Commander Shepard?" 

"Only that she led the fight against the Reapers, sir."

He smirked. "But what do you know about the  _real_  Commander Shepard?"

Selia's mandibles flared in consternation. "Nothing, sir."

Relaxing, he faced her fully and crossed his arms as if he were settling into an old arm chair. "She'd hate me for telling you this, but she knew everything about music yet couldn't dance to save her life. She had one signature move. The Normandy's pilot called it the Shepard Shimmy..."

Selia stood there beside him for longer than she was probably allotted; calm and listening intently. Collecting and cultivating his every word.

Once he began, more memories emerged. Kaidan recounted harrowing tales of her early career; of James Vega's multiple failed attempts to defeat her at arm wrestling; of her and Miranda Lawson's shared love of Carl Nielsen, particularly Jascha Horenstein's interpretation of his Fifth, as if siphoning pieces of their life could keep her flicker from going out. Every new face was fresh kindling to carry that flame forward. Perhaps, he thought,  _this_ was what he should do.

Let the world know she was funny. That she could belch the alphabet. That she bit her nails. That she always wanted to try skiing. That she loved breakfast for dinner. That she wasn’t  _pretty_ , but  _captivating_. That she liked the saccharine taste of his biotic energy drinks more than he did, especially as a mixer. That she was shaped by a childhood of hardship. That she was confident. That she was lightning in a bottle. That she rose to meet her fate with humility. That she was complicated. 

Once he subsided to silence, Selia spoke again. "She was your One?" 

"My what?"

"Sorry. An old-fashioned turian belief. Guess I'm a bit of a romantic, sir." She shrugged her weapon over her shoulder.

 _That she was your One_. Seemed fitting at the moment. "Deep down, I think I'm a bit of a romantic, too," he responded.

When Selia left, her omnitool summoning her elsewhere, his world felt all the darker for her absence. For a moment, Nora's ember reignited and warmed within the heart of another.

Kaidan took one last look at the crumbled Presidium before proceeding.


	2. Chapter 2

_The elevator slowed to a gentle halt._  

 _“Major_   _Alenko_ _,” EDI said, “I’ve noted your increased stress levels and feel compelled to inform you that Shepard’s bodily temperature has stabilized to ninety-eight-point-seven degrees and her_ _heart circulation_ _is regulated at seventy-two beats per minute.”_  

 _“Thank you, EDI.” Though the sentiment—if he could call it that—was appreciated, his concern spanned deeper than her physical well-being._  

 _He and Nora had seen horrors in the past. The_ _thorin_ _on_ _Feros_ _, with its impeccable ability to control the colonists’ minds, couldn’t compare to the colossal calamity they witnessed on_ _Mahavid_ _._ _Between a sentient plant, an ancient race of unstoppable machines and the entity Nora encountered in the deep,_ _the_ _great evils of the past posed a more ominous threat than any contemporary foe he’d faced. No wonder_ _Javik_ _, the Normandy’s link to the last cycle, was always so tense._  

 _She sat on the sofa in her sunken living room, damp hair_ _pulled into a haphazard topknot, pursing her_ _narrow_ _mouth while her eyes darted eagerly over a_ _datapad_ _._ _Nora appeared calm and introspective since_ _her_ _de_ _briefing after_ _emerging from_ _the_ _depths_ _._ _A cello rumbled low from her music player,_   _piercing_ _yet fluid_ _,_ _like liquid silk and sharpened knives._  

 _“Elgar’s concerto,” he said,_ _taking a seat across from her. She smiled proudly when he played this game with her._   _In their two years apart, he’d given himself plenty of time to familiarize himself with her favorite pedagogues. Brahms, Berlioz and Beethoven were surprisingly comforting companions in_ _grief_ _._  

 _“You’re getting better. Which_ _soloist_ _?”_  

 _“…Du_ _Pr_ _é_ _?”_  

 _“_ _Very good,_ _”_ _she praised. She tossed the_   _datapad_ _onto the seat and reached for another with a heavy sigh._ _“_ _Kaidan_ _, this doesn’t make any sense.”_  

 _He crossed his arms. “To think that the Reapers’ creators are still out there. And that you_ spoke _to one of them.”_  

 _“It’s not only that. It’s the fact that those fuckers started all this and had the balls to call themselves the apex race._   _They have no regret, no sympathy, no desire to_ _put an_ _end_ _to_ _what they caused. All they’re concerned about is how to regain their status in the galaxy. It’s like they never learned from their mistake._ _There’s something about it all that doesn’t seem…._ _”_  

 _She trailed off, her_ _finished_ _idea_   _hanging in the air, unsaid._  

 _“Shepard, what are you thinking?”_  

 _Her pale blue eyes shifted downward, brow_ _furled_ _in contemplation._  

 _“Shepard?”_  

 _Her silence persisted._  

 _“…Nora?”_  

 

* * *

 

 

"Welcome to Huerta Memorial Hospital," a cheerful Avina console chirped. The infirmary had been a maelstrom of activity since the invasion. Overburdened nurses dashed this way and that like Liara’s drone, demanding diagnoses and trading datapads with physicians. Not much had changed since the invasion. Kaidan recalled the same din of desperation and devastation during his recovery.  

“Excuse me,” he pushed his way through the crowd. “I need to—” 

He was a newly minted Spectre then. It was unlike him to abuse his position, but he hadn’t seen his parents in a year… 

“Move! Spectre Alenko, Citadel Council. I have urgent business.” Kaidan flashed his credentials and wove his way through the fray toward an asari clerk at the reception desk.  

"Spectre Alenko?" 

"Yeah, I'm looking for—" 

"I know. The Shadow Broker notified me that you were on your way. They're at the end of the hall in the east wing—your father’s just getting settled," she pointed. 

Leave it to Liara to keep everything in order. Kaidan's metal boots echoed on the tile as he bolted to their room. A part of him wished he'd second-guessed the armor. Here he was, about to face his family for the first time since the world ended, all hard edges like the Tin Man.  

The sight of them proved his heart was still intact, at least.  

"Mom. Dad," he said softly. Huddled under a thermal blanket, his mother turned and her weathered, weary face brightened.  

“ _Kaidan_ ,” she gasped, rising to cup his face in her delicate hands. She smiled up at him, crooked and affectionate, through rheumy eyes and frayed white hair. Then she pulled his face downward to kiss his cheeks profusely with arid lips.  

"I'm glad you're all right. How is he?" His father lay still in the bed, body pinned with splints while the ethanol sting of medigel burned the air. He studied the rise and fall of the man's chest, and the deep lines on his tired face. All three of them looked older and greyer since they’d last met.  

"They gave him something to put him out while the nanoskeleton does its job." 

"How long will the medication last?" 

"Might be the rest of the day," she said softly, reclaiming her seat and blanket. "But I know he'll be ecstatic to see you. Thank you for the flowers. They're beautiful." 

Sure enough, a bright arrangement had been placed with alacrity on the table next to his father's bed and signed in his name. Kaidan hadn't sent them, but he needn't guess who had. 

"Mom," his voice broke, "what happened? How...how did you—?"  

She wrung her hands and pursed her cracked mouth. "Oh, Kaidan, it was awful..." 

In her own time, she recalled the horrors they endured on Earth while he was busy being sworn in as a Spectre. The way the sky went from countless dreadnaughts crashing into English Bay. Their neighbors' screams as they were impaled, one by one, on dragon's teeth. The pain in their bones from months of hiding, of trusting, of losing, of hoping. 

"...then we heard the news. That lady on your ship. Allers was her name? She mentioned that the Alliance was building a weapon and then  _your_ voice came on the intercom. The fact that we knew you were okay...there aren't words." 

"I thought about you two every day," he said. 

She choked back a sob, wiping tears away with her fingers. "Finally, one day the Reapers just stopped in their tracks. It was over, just like that. We met up with an Alliance patrol unit and didn't waste a minute scouring the countryside for survivors. They told us about Shepard...honey, I'm so, so sorry." 

All he could think to say was, "Yeah." His voice a raspy whisper. 

"Spectre Alenko?" a nurse inquired. "I'm going to need to take your mother to run some diagnostics." 

"Is everything all right?" Kaidan asked. 

He nodded. "Just a routine checkup to make sure she has no underlying issues. You can check back later." 

He looked at his mother, all frail bones and sunken cheeks, and felt compelled to keep her by his side. "I'll come visit you tomorrow, okay? When dad's awake." 

Exiting the room, he planned the rest of his afternoon. The Alliance had been hosting a mental health briefing about coping with the sight of benevolent Reapers. His office piled high with new stacks of reports: progress on Rannoch, conflict resolution on Asari territory after the news broke about their concealment of Prothean artifacts, news from Captain Vakarian about the Normandy's latest exploits. 

"...Could use a bit more tightening up here," a familiar voice echoed from the rehabilitation rooms. Kaidan peered inside to see James receiving routine maintenance on a new bionic prosthetic. The amputation was inevitable after he'd suffered severe tissue damage from Harbinger's last assault. 

"Commander Vega," he called. James perked his head, his brown eyes beaming with such contentment he almost felt a wash of envy.  

"L2! You just making the rounds?" 

He nodded. "Something like that. Nice implant you got there." 

"Oh, this old thing? I thought you'd never ask." The arm curled in a bicep flex, glossy white metal gleaming under the fluorescent lights. "Just finished up a round of rehab. You got a minute to talk?" 

"I have a few minutes," he lied.  

They reconvened in the waiting area over tin cups of communal coffee. The silvertone vessel looked comically small against James' lumbering hands and broad shoulders, made even more comical by the dainty window seats into which they settled. 

"Been a while, L2. You look, uh...how you holdin' up?" 

The look he gave him was redolent of pity. Kaidan grimaced while Liara's scolding danced through his head. He'd never considered himself especially vain, but more than one jab per day was beginning to wear away what little ego he possessed.  

"Keeping busy. How's the arm?" 

James gave a careless shrug. “Took a Reaper to the side and still had the strength to carry your dead ass onto an evac shuttle.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said with a pang of remorse. 

“Yeah, well, now I can whoop Esteban at hoops so I try to focus on the silver lining. These days I’m all net, baby.” He mimed a ball throw.  

“Think you’d finally be able to beat Shepard at arm wrestling with that thing?” 

He chuckled, smiling fondly. Vega always had a good sense of humor. “This thing never gets tired, but neither did Lola. Naw, she'd still kick my ass.” 

His smile faded to solemnity and the conversation fizzled. James didn't share Liara's stifling sense of curiosity. No lingering meteors here.

"Jack doing okay?"

"Those kids of hers keep her busy.  Haven't seen her in a while, but we're both fans of doing our own thing," he responded. "She's still pissed off as hell, though, that'll never go away. Nowadays I think she likes that she can just blame it all on this guy."

"That's...good...I guess."

Kaidan studied the passersby in the streets below, idly sipping his black tar masquerading as coffee. Patrol units monitored the perimeter and checked pedestrians for identification—mainly as a measure to keep track of who still lived among the many that the Citadel lost. Then, a glowing flash that cut through the umbra of shadows darted behind a corner. The movement summoned a small gasp from him and he sprang forward. 

“What is it, L2?” 

The glow dissipated into dimness once more and just like that, the eerie sensation that enveloped him was gone. 

“Vega, I need to ask you something with the utmost sincerity.” 

"Well now you're freaking me out, but go ahead," he said. 

“What would you say if I told you that lately I’ve been seeing things? Hearing things?” He paused, unable to accept the absurdity of it all. “A voice?” 

James studied him. "That depends. Whose voice do you hear?" 

Kaidan's lips pursed, as if saying it out loud was something irrevocable. Vega uttered an expression of understanding.  

"Look man," he said, rubbing the back of his neck using his synthetic arm with a comfortable fluidity, "when shit hit the fan, I started having these dreams." 

"Yeah?" Kaidan quirked a brow.  

"Yeah." He inhaled, exhaling heavily through his nose. "My old man. As a husk. It sounded just like him, but..." He trailed off, studying the skyline as if repressing a visceral remembrance. "Sounds shitty, but you just gotta remind yourself that dreams are all they are. They don’t mean anything, and thinking they're anything more will kill you.” 

The small hope faded when James sat back in his seat, having nothing else to say on the matter. After draining their cups, the two bid each other farewell with a promise to reconvene and align their schedules.  

By the time he returned home, the sun was low and the stars dappled an ever-darkening sky.  He turned the handle, stepped inside and activated the door locks. Passing the kitchen, he noted a new array of biotic energy drinks lining the counter in neon hues of orange and blue. Kaidan smiled coyly. He owed Liara after all she'd done for his parents. 

After all she'd done for  _him_. 

Activating his omnitool, he constructed a new message to the Shadow Broker's alias address:  

 _Changed my mind. Meet you tomorrow night in front of the casino. Leave Glyph at home. -K._  

Kaidan cracked open an orange bottle and guzzled it, ignoring the bite of hunger as the drink swelled his empty stomach. These days, he gorged himself on memories seasoned with the ephemeral hope that he'd receive closure via a knock on the door in the nascent rays of sunlight. 

He always stirred awake before her, primed by years of dedication and ritual. In her absence, he grew to resent the cold emptiness on her side of the bed. Stripping off his armor, he reassembled it on its mannequin and placed his pistol in its holster. That empty space was another sullen reminder, so he made a habit of resting in the middle of the mattress.  

Someday, he needed to accept the truth: there would be no closure. One moment the Reapers were bloodthirsty and the next moment they weren't. One moment Shepard was back in his arms and the next.... 

"No," he scolded himself. Kaidan regulated his breathing, taking sharp inhales for seven seconds, holding them, and exhaling through his mouth. Meditation kept the pain from eating away at his mind. It helped him through BAaT, through the military, through everything. Eventually, he was able to lie still enough to drift into the watery embrace of sleep. 

Then it happened again.  

" _Kaidan_ ," that damned discordant whisper called.  

There he stood, among the dismal ruin of a grandiose chamber. Judging by the shadows coming from the open chasm above, the time was somewhere between the deep of night and the haze of dawn. At the epicenter: pure blackness plummeting indefinitely. He looked around for a clue, but due to the state of the world it was impossible to pinpoint an edifice from one pile of rubble over another. 

A gentle hum resonated under his feet—so eerily, achingly familiar. Droning on in a steady octave. When his amp fizzled with static, he finally remembered. Slowly, the room rebuilt itself before his very eyes: grandiose pillars of sandstone beige, lush ferns and a babbling fountain.  

"The Tower!" He cried, rousing hastily from slumber. Throwing the duvet to the ground, he scrambled from sleep like a new recruit in his first week of basic training. No time to waste, he stepped back into his armor, locking it securely with the memorized movements. Once his holster had been fastened and his pistol equipped, he charged outside and made his way to the now-defunct Government Plaza. 


	3. Chapter 3

Kaidan could have reaved himself for not recognizing the spot sooner. The Council chamber where she stood on trial against Saren Arterius; where she’d been publicly named the first human Spectre; where she ordered the rescue of the Destiny Ascension. The place where it all began. 

He approached the mouth of the chasm, just as before. Only now, nothing jerked him awake. Instead, a faint glow resonated at the edge. The first step appeared before him, sliding into place just above the drop. Sleek and glistening faintly in the dark. Feeling brazen, he dared to trust it. With a wince, Kaidan placed one foot out to feel the give when a second slid into place just above it.   
   
“What the—?” He asked aloud but took the next step anyway. Upwards he climbed with stairs sliding in front of him in an intricate spiral until he paused, dizzied by the height, to glance out at the arms of the Citadel beyond him. What was he  _doing_? Following a hunch? Making a desperate plea for something good to come of his paranoia?   
   
Something was up there. Something  _wanted_  him to climb into thin air. Something beckoned him, watched him, called to him. Called to  _only_  him. Kaidan Alenko had not been afraid of much in his lifetime, but as he climbed he felt his sanity slipping. He feared that what he was doing was exactly that:  _insane_.

He breached the landing and peered over the edge, feeling the band around his heart tighten when he found no one. The room seemed more like a balcony than anything else. The stairs let him walk out onto the open floor, framed by wide shutters showcasing the galaxy. A barren circular chamber housed a series of machines on the far wall with a shuddering current running within a glass tube.

“Hello?” He called out, walking towards one of the windows. “Is anyone here?” He turned around, searching the angles of the architecture. “Did someone bring me?” He paced to the other side of the room. “Is this a prank? Who?”

“ _Kaidan_.” His heart skipped, a stone on still waters. That voice, achingly familiar, yet unlike any he had heard before, reached out to him in the sterile emptiness of the room. “Don’t be afraid.”

He didn’t dare face it, her voice like fingers on his spine, but he did allow the spark of hope to kindle heat in his chest. Kaidan clenched his eyes shut.

“Shepard?” His whisper slid out through a too-tight larynx and he fisted his hands at his sides. If he looked, if he opened his eyes, he would be laying in his bed again thinking about her.  _Fuck_ , he was in too deep this time.

“Turn around.” Her voice, mingled with the echoes of others, frightened him. The flanging was eerie, chilling. It clutched at his flesh with an icy grip.

“Shepard.” He did as she asked, opening his eyes as if she would be standing before him. Instead what he found was an empty space, another framed void with stars littering the darkness. More nothing.

“Over here.” He followed the sound, fingers gripping at his holster and aiming his pistol when his gaze fell on…it. No. Not  _it_. 

 _Her_. 

The sight made his blood run cold. She stood before him  _not_  as she had been in life—all black armor and bright eyes—but as a mirage, trying to make sense of light rippling in a mirror. She appeared ethereal, illuminated. He recalled the moments when he had seen the light out of the corner of his eye and realized that  _this_  was the apparition haunting him. The gun fell from his hands with a heavy clack.

“ _Nora_.”

"Commander Leonora Shepard. Alliance Navy. SSV Normandy. Council Spectre. Born in Vancouver on April 11, 2154. Blood type: A positive. We remember." Phantom eyes met him and the fine hairs on his neck prickled. "We remember you, most of all."

The ghost, whatever it was, lifted her hand as if to touch him. Its face—her face—rendered in translucent detail, softened with emotion. He reached, praying his hand would catch on something more than the air that the entity provided. He felt nothing.

“What  _are_  you?” He stepped closer and she gripped her shoulder, casting her eyes away from him. “Are you _...her?”_  He caught himself holding his breath, pushing it out through his nose. If he took his eyes off her she might vanish into the shadows of memory once more.

“We are," she answered," and we are not."

He worked his mouth over words he couldn’t bring himself to say, clenching his hand to distract from the scorch in his chest. 

"Explain."

“The Commander sacrificed her corporeal form to control the Reapers.” She walked away from him, glistening hair wafting in an artificial vacuum. He noted its liquid quality, not heavily draped over one shoulder in a haphazard braid the way Nora typically wore it. The way it was when she said her final goodbye. “We were forged from her memories when we unified with the former Catalyst. We now serve as the last will and testament of Leonora Shepard."

“So, then you  _are_  Shepard," he reasoned, desperately needing her to be standing before him so he could reconcile all the mistakes he'd made. “Aren’t you?”

She hesitated, her fingers lingering over the sill of the great windows around them, but she didn’t speak.

“What happened?” He asked, following with his eyes. 

Again, no answer; her image fluttering as if shaken by an unseen wind.

“Why? I don't—there’s so much I don’t understand," he pleaded. " _Why_ did you bring me here?!”

“We don’t know.” 

“ _What are you_?” Kaidan demanded again _._ “Some kind of memory shard? A VI?”

“We are a construct."

"What does that even  _mean_?"

"We assumed the place of the previous Catalyst under Commander Shepard’s decision to control the Reapers.” She gestured to where an iridescent blue current ran through the glowing glass tubes as if that could quell his moon-eyed mania.

"You're going to have to give me details. What did Nora do?"

“She realized that she needed to become more. To stop the cycle of destruction, someone would need to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again. Thus, we were created from her indestructible will.”

He shook. Everything shook. Kaidan's biotics thrummed, yearning to unleash. "No. No, no, no. She wanted to  _destroy_  the Reapers.  _That_  was her goal."

"That motivation was accurate prior to her encounter with the Catalyst. After Admiral David Edward Anderson's death, she found herself presented with new information. She received a choice."

"Which was?" Kaidan's stomach lurched. Endlessly, vainly, ceaselessly, he'd yearned to know what became her. His heart starved for days, then weeks, then months without answers. Now, he confronted something alien. Forbidden. Gone, yet not gone. Shepard, yet not Shepard. 

Silence. Nora's ghost turned to stand in front of him at a distance that would have been intimate. Her face hardened and God, she looked just like her then. All stern, cool and collected.

"Mutually assured destruction versus the protection of the many."

"Can you stop being cryptic for  _one_  second?" Kaidan croaked, his throat tight. "If you are Nora, you'd know how to tell it to me straight." The woman rarely minced words—never had time to. 

Her gaze dropped and he wondered if he’d phased her. "Very well. The original Catalyst revealed itself to be an advanced AI programmed to perpetuate the Reaper cycle, but altered its programming based on Shepard's actions. The Commander had the opportunity to destroy the Reapers with the caveat of eliminating every other synthetic construction in the galaxy. This included the geth, mass relays, the Citadel, the Catalyst itself and—as was her primary concern—the Leviathan artifacts."

 _The Leviathan._ Kaidan recalled Nora's limp and frigid body emerging from the deep after an auspicious encounter. She remained silent through the night, her brow knitted in contemplation.

"Like current civilization, the Leviathan sought freedom from the shackles of solitude brought forth by their own creation; brought forth by the Catalyst. After her encounter, Shepard felt confident that they posed a dangerous threat."

Suddenly, the conclusion clicked into place like a fresh heat sink. "And if she opted to destroy the Reapers, we'd be stranded and defenseless. The Leviathan would be free to manipulate our minds all over again."

 _They never learned from their mistake_ _._  

Her lashes fluttered, caked in bright starlight. She looked at him sagely before giving a firm nod. “Shepard suspected that the Catalyst led her to a trap disguised as a solution. The Catalyst had been designed by Leviathan to ensure an endless supply of thralls. By initiating the Destroy command, it would complete its primary objective at the cost of its own existence.”

“So, she chose…”

“Unity,” she said. “The protection of the many.”

That’s what it all boiled down to, then. In the end, Nora couldn’t complete her mission as intended—not with a blind threat at her back. Even in dialogue with an ancient synthetic, she faced it as if it were a battlefield: strategy first. The benign Reapers were a countermeasure to keep the Leviathan in line.

Somehow that didn’t reassure him at all. “This is…a lot.”

“We understand that this information may take time to process.”

“You’re really not Nora, are you?” he asked one more time.

She stood there, frozen and unreadable. “We will meet again,” she said, “when preparations are complete.”

Kaidan blinked. “Preparations?”

“It’s time to wake up, Lieutenant Colonel Alenko.”

“Wait, what?” his heart thudded in his chest. “I  _am_ awake!”

Was he not?

“Kaidan, don’t be afraid,” she repeated. “You’re going to awaken now.”

The starlight melted from the sky like water splattered across a west canvas. Moments later, the floor opened. Kaidan plummeted dizzyingly into the abyss below, spiraling through the Citadel’s artificial atmosphere. He tried to scream but found his voice gone.

Without warning his eyes flashed open, perplexed. He lunged forward, bathed in bright sunlight and blinding white blankets in a frenzy of shudders and gasps. He sat there in the cold and dawning dread of his own bed. His head throbbed and it took a few moments for his vision to still and for the haze of bewilderment to dissipate.

Had he officially lost his mind? It had to be the case; it was impossible for Shepard’s ghost to summon a great hall in the sky and reveal the truth behind the Catalyst. Feeble, he rose out of bed and tried to balance himself as if on stilted legs. He wore his underclothes, as he did before he fell asleep.

That confirmed it was only a dream, he consoled himself. Peering across the room, he noted his armor hanging unmolested on its mannequin just like the night before. He studied the cerulean plates from greaves to gauntlets, to holster—

It sat empty.  _His pistol_. In a fit of shock and awe, he’d dropped it. Eagerly he scanned the dresser, cast a cursory glance at the side tables and floor for any ill-placed weaponry. Panic set in and he felt the ache at the back of his skull ebb.

The gun was nowhere to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some Thoughts about my ending that I never articulated, so here's how Kaidan met Unity for the first time.


End file.
